Chapter 17: Friends Forever, Benefits Open to Change

Wednesday, October 3rd

This was the first morning when we didn’t have school commitments. Margaret was my lovely Companion of the day. She arrived in a casual but sexy black knit tube dress, quite short. Her bare legs with high-heeled pumps. reminding me pleasantly of some of the less dramatic street hookers in the business areas of the 14th Street strip. The fabric was thin enough to emphasize the perkiness of her lovely breasts, and show off the nipples.

Giggling, she told me “I’m not wearing a living bra, but if you want to play with my boobs, you’ll find them to be very lively.”

I laughed back. “My lovely leggy mathematician. Want to do a standard deviation or two?”

“Ah yes.”

“Harold, I’m actually a quite lusty lady, but I’ve never had the opportunity to flaunt myself to appreciative eyes. This is liberating for me.

“In that case, how about slipping out of that dress and posing as provocatively as you can imagine?

She started to yank it off, then slowed, peeling down the top. “See my titties? See my pretty pretty nipples? She pinched and pulled at them, pleasing herself.

Margaret was blossoming. When once she had almost shuffled, her stride was now confident. I didn’t know if she played any sports, but I could see her becoming a killer at something.

Recruiting among us

“Margaret, I’d like to discuss, with you and Lois, if there are any male students that plausibly might join us. I’m not sure whether to say boys or men. Let’s face it: men mature later than women. In our class, there may not be any.”

“Interesting. Let’s get Lois.”

Lois was in a very good mood, in that the new program let her sleep in, later than the 5:00 that being at school often required. She also was relieved not to need the at-school dress code. Still, she mentally juggled between her favorite casual outfit based around a leotard, and something that let her look focused but attractive. Today, she had gone in the latter direction, with a shirtdress, far shorter than she could have worn in school. They were in a dark red in which I’d never seen her, but certainly looked good with her sheer black hose. I spent a moment admiring her blue-black hair against the red, and again was reminded how Lois and Shelley resembled one another.

“You know the student body, in my freshman class and into senior high. Our clan needs some male members. Can you think of students that have the requisite maturity to accept this strange learning environment?”

Lois pondered. “Walter immediately comes to mind, but then I realize that he is utterly committed to his girlfriend, Stella.” In my mind, I chuckled, from my other-life awareness that attending their 50th anniversary party was one of my last memories.

“Mark Hunter is an interesting candidate. On the one hand, he isn’t very attractive physically. My intuition, however, is that there’s much strength underneath. With what we can do in wardrobe, physical training, and so forth, can we get around the visual? With the emotional and sexual support he’d have from us, he might well develop such an outgoing personality that looks won’t matter.”

Margaret suddenly brightened. “A student confided some goals to me, and they make him a real candidate.”

“Who?”

“George Lawrence. His ambition is not just to become a Naval Aviator, but to command an air group. He actually is a student of the military. George is very quiet in general, and definitely about this. In addition, he’s not a bad-looking guy, especially if we can put some weight and muscle on him.”

“Who should make the approaches? Let me make an observation -- there can be some horrible practical jokes dreamed up by girls, suggesting attraction but actually setting up humiliation. I do suggest that our girls, as early as possible, do something consensual, but so overtly sexual, that they have credibility about sincerity.”

Margaret said, “For George, both intellect, and also someone tall, given that he’s on the string bean side. Vivian as a classmate, and also Greta.”

Nodding at Margaret’s suggestion, “I might be closer to Mark. Given I’ve seen him look from afar, I’d think of Shelley and Arlene.”

Hail to the Chiefs?

“Today, we need to review how the military is responding to McNamara and the President, although it’s all preliminary. We also all need to be aware of the confused command structure, which is far more complex than the President and SECDEF to the Chiefs.

“Briefly, these involve both personalities and structure. As to personalities, McNamara is generally contemptuous of professional military officers that aren’t interested in turning everything into a mathematical model. He doesn’t appreciate subjective judgments, even from people with extensive knowledge. He and Admiral Anderson, especially, have friction between them. Any ideas on interpersonal lubrication are more than welcome.

“Also a personality issue is RFK, who has his brother’s complete trust, but sometimes is even more, perhaps unwisely, aggressive. On other occasions, though, he does well as the President’s eyes, demanding deliberation. It gets weird when he wants both in the same issue.

“Going to the organizational, the MONGOOSE project isn’t very well controlled. It does things that normally are the job of the CIA, but the President totally distrusts the CIA field operators as a result of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. While General Lansdale, the head of MONGOOSE operations, is loosely under the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he can bypass it and go directly to the White House level Special Group, which is more a committee. I’d say that the grownup in the Special Group is CIA Director McCone.

“The second major area is looking at some of the military recommendations, and thinking about how we can encourage the prudent ones and discourage those that seem from the guy in the black hat in a Western.”

“Excuse me, Harold. On Have Gun, Will Travel, Paladin, the good guy, wore a black hat.” Margaret, who we would discover was a television buff, smiled with smug satisfaction.

“Margaret, my dear, you illustrate how, in politicomilitary situations, things may not be what they seem.”

“Some immediate responses, mostly by the Navy were reasonable preparation, not provocative, and not offering too-quick military solutions. Parts of the Air Force, and to some extent the Navy, are, in my opinion, offering quick military solutions that are unreliable and might draw us into general war.

“As an example of the reasonable sort, take CNO Anderson’s order, issued shortly after he left McNamara’s meeting on the 1st, Admiral Dennison, the Atlantic Fleet commander, directed all of his subordinate organization to prepare for a complete blockade of Cuba. He also ordered his respective subordinate commands to preposition supplies and ordnance so as to achieve “maximum readiness” to conduct the air strike by 20 October.

“Will McNamara regard that as insubordinate?” asked Shelley.

“Good question. Normally, I’d say not. Navies historically emphasize readiness. With McNamara’s propensity toward micromanagement, and contempt of professional military officers, I really don’t know.”

“We have enormous naval superiority over the Soviets, and we should support using it as a centerpiece of our military actions. Blockade is complex in international law, and sometimes considered an act of war, but the naval legal people should be able to find a workable set of ground rules. If there is violence, keeping it at sea is the best way not to let things go after control. Our actions should have, as a high priority, encouraging the sea control function, rather than direct attack on Cuba. Remember, large things have to get to Cuba by sea, and if they can’t, there’s much less chance of conflict. They don’t have the airlift power to deliver the pieces of ballistic missile bases, except by ship.

“The Navy acted on its own, although within the authority of Anderson and Dennison. In the meantime, the President asked McNamara about the status of planning. The response started with his statement that he “taken steps to insure that our contingency plans for Cuba are kept up to date.”

When he went into further detail, he predicted that “we were prepared to hit the SAM sites attack the SA-2 missile sites using iron bombs, napalm, and 20mm cannon.” I looked up, frowning. “I learned more about the tactics planned, about which LeMay and Anderson were confident. They predicted that the SA-2 surface-to-air missiles could not hit the attacking American aircraft inasmuch as they would fly under the missiles’ minimum effective altitude, although fire from adjacent anti-aircraft batteries would probably down some planes. There was no mention of electronic warfare being used to support them, variously jamming the radar, or communications with fighters or other sites. The plan was to use eight fighter-bombers against SAM sites, and twelve against ballistic missile installations and airbases.

“A message that we need to encourage: air attack is not a reliable means to take out a potential ballistic missile threat. The technology just isn’t there for applying our airpower without great losses, nor are our weapons precise enough to be certain that missile capabilities were destroyed.

“My personal opinion is that we would lose a hell of a lot of fighters, but not necessarily achieve the results.” I reached out, telempathically, to reinforce this -- I didn’t want to get into my foreknowledge of how this failed, for years, in Vietnam.

“With the Air Force, however, one approach comes to mind. The Air Force Weapons School does a certain amount of research in developing tactics. I wonder if they’ve gamed the SAM site problem? They’re very respected.

“LeMay absolutely believes in his Air Force, and that they can accomplish anything. In WWII, he sometimes demonstrated his commitment by flying the lead bomber of a raid. Don’t get me wrong. I have enormous respect for his abilities, knowledge, and leadership, but less for his political sense and respect for civilian authority.

“I’d also like to hear what General Sweeney, the head of the Tactical Air Command, thinks. He’s one of the good guys. I wish someone could go to Admiral Anderson and ask for him to think pessimistically about this mission. He’s one of the good guys, and he himself is a Naval Aviator.

“People, this is one of those things where I can’t go into detail, but have high confidence that it’s harder to take out a SAM base, properly protected by low-altitude anti-aircraft guns, than the Air Force and Navy believed.

“I want everyone to think about possible contacts. We probably can ask Andy for his thoughts, at least in calming the Air Force, if that’s at all possible. I’m not sure yet if Diane is ready to help.

“Folks, we’ve got to both find outside contacts, and also recruit some more members of the clan, absolutely including men. Lois and Margaret are going to follow up on their two suggestions, to talk with Mark Hunter and George Lawrence.”

Shelley spoke up. “Mark often seems as if he wants to talk with me, but seems shy. It’s interesting in a way, as we seem to share the darker complexion of North Africans, and he also might be a Mizrahi or Sephardic Jew by heritage. I think that I like him.”

“On my part, George may have tried to talk to me but I didn’t encourage him,” said Vivian. “He’s obviously smart -- I just didn’t want to encourage any boys. If we can avoid deep romance, I’m more than willing to revisit that.”

“Good. Other ideas?”

Margaret observed “I keep hearing people mention Carol D, who is the cheerleader co-captain with Carol G. As well as her traditional popular role, people continue to mention the first Carol as a sweet, supportive person, not at all clique-ish or a social butterfly. Carol G is more the latter, although not quite a Mean Girl.”

I agreed. Carol D was memorable; it was her struggle with a kilt revealing her leg that was one of my memories fifty years later. I didn’t get to my reunion, but some pictures were circulated. Carol was on a beach with her daughter and granddaughter. All three wore bikinis. From the rear, it wasn’t clear if the grandmother had the better figure than the granddaughter, but all three were gorgeous. Yes, I’d like to see her again.

Diane’s Party

This morning, Diane phoned Lois to discuss the party. “Are we on?”

“Absolutely. Let’s do a little planning. You mentioned, I think, that you and Andy might come over together; you trust him enough for that.”